Short
stories have a long-serving history in the hands of second
language teachers as a reliable input. Textbook writers have
considered them a reliable source for language acquisition
since they provide food for our thought through their
plurality of theme, diction, context, and narrative.
Nevertheless, the traditional teaching practices have
limited their scope and effect to the extent of making the
students unenthusiastic about their use in language
classrooms. This paper establishes the substance of stories
and provides ten creative activities using stories to
promote interactive and useful learning experiences among
the students.

Introduction

Stories are
inevitable part of human culture. Parents use them for
various reasons viz. to soothe their crying children, to put
them to sleep, to enrich their imagination, to make them
morally responsible and to mould them in rich cultural
heritage. Teachers willingly fallback on stories in
classrooms giving a break to the subjects they deal with;
and if the teachers are friendly students themselves request
for stories. At times, parents’ professional demands
and teachers’ computer suaveness lead them to use
technology as a replacement narrator. Especially, the
computer games have given stories a unique dimension in
which the users become contributors of the action narrated.
Interestingly, these actions determine the flow of the
stories, that is, the users become the protagonists whose
actions guide the outcome of the stories – an
important aspect of the soaring popularity of such games.
Two facts emerge here: firstly, parents/teachers depend
heavily on stories whenever and wherever necessary; and
secondly, children/students involve themselves in the
narration if they are active contributors. So there seems to
be an inseparable bond between humans and stories.

The substance of stories

Most of us would agree to the belief that stories serve as
an effective means of language input which according to
Garvie (1990) can stimulate thought and feeling while
helping students acquire language skills. The limitless
possibilities of varied themes, intense conflict and
valuable ideas give students plenty of creative space for
discussion. Using stories, Strodt-Lopez (1996) feels,
facilitates authentic peer interaction since stories create
“a desire to communicate that is natural, unrehearsed,
and strong” (Basturkmen 1990: 18). Gwin (1990) says
that stories enhance writing skills because they provide an
effective platform to understand the subtle nuances of
complex elements embedded in writing. Above all, it is the
“place where language and meaning meet” (Kooy
and Chiu 1998: 79) as nothing of human experiences takes
place in a vacuum. Every experience is embedded in plurality
of contexts woven into a variety of structures. In this
regard, one would certainly agree with Murdoch (1992) who
says that “Writing does not occur in a vacuum. The
writer is himself a product of a particular environment and
society,” (p. 4) - thus attributing meaning through
its rich context to help the students deduce meanings of
unfamiliar words.

Every sense found in stories relies
entirely on words which are winged in appropriate contexts
to assist the creative minds of the students; and every
character portraying these experiences reflects the culture
of the larger society. Houston (1997), a practising teacher,
asserts that stories give “a sense of belonging”
(p. 382) to the students which makes them feel that they are
part of a larger community, which has a system, custom, and
identity of its own. This feeling of belongingness comes
when the stories are closer to the hearts of the students.

Creative Use of Short Stories in ESL Classrooms

Posted by :J.John Love Joy

Abstract

Short stories have a long-serving history in
the hands of second language teachers as a reliable input. Textbook writers have considered them a
reliable source for language acquisition since they provide food for our thought through their
plurality of theme, diction, context, and narrative. Nevertheless, the traditional teaching
practices have limited their scope and effect to the extent of making the students unenthusiastic
about their use in language classrooms. This paper establishes the substance of stories and provides
ten creative activities using stories to promote interactive and useful learning experiences among
the students.

Introduction

Stories are
inevitable part of human culture. Parents use them for various reasons viz. to soothe their crying
children, to put them to sleep, to enrich their imagination, to make them morally responsible and to
mould them in rich cultural heritage. Teachers willingly fallback on stories in classrooms giving a
break to the subjects they deal with; and if the teachers are friendly students themselves request
for stories. At times, parents’ professional demands and teachers’ computer suaveness
lead them to use technology as a replacement narrator. Especially, the computer games have given
stories a unique dimension in which the users become contributors of the action narrated.
Interestingly, these actions determine the flow of the stories, that is, the users become the
protagonists whose actions guide the outcome of the stories – an important aspect of the
soaring popularity of such games. Two facts emerge here: firstly, parents/teachers depend heavily on
stories whenever and wherever necessary; and secondly, children/students involve themselves in the
narration if they are active contributors. So there seems to be an inseparable bond between humans
and stories.

The substance of stories

Most of us would
agree to the belief that stories serve as an effective means of language input which according to
Garvie (1990) can stimulate thought and feeling while helping students acquire language skills. The
limitless possibilities of varied themes, intense conflict and valuable ideas give students plenty
of creative space for discussion. Using stories, Strodt-Lopez (1996) feels, facilitates authentic
peer interaction since stories create “a desire to communicate that is natural, unrehearsed,
and strong” (Basturkmen 1990: 18). Gwin (1990) says that stories enhance writing skills
because they provide an effective platform to understand the subtle nuances of complex elements
embedded in writing. Above all, it is the “place where language and meaning meet” (Kooy
and Chiu 1998: 79) as nothing of human experiences takes place in a vacuum. Every experience is
embedded in plurality of contexts woven into a variety of structures. In this regard, one would
certainly agree with Murdoch (1992) who says that “Writing does not occur in a vacuum. The
writer is himself a product of a particular environment and society,” (p. 4) - thus
attributing meaning through its rich context to help the students deduce meanings of unfamiliar
words.

Every sense found
in stories relies entirely on words which are winged in appropriate contexts to assist the creative
minds of the students; and every character portraying these experiences reflects the culture of the
larger society. Houston (1997), a practising teacher, asserts that stories give “a sense of
belonging” (p. 382) to the students which makes them feel that they are part of a larger
community, which has a system, custom, and identity of its own. This feeling of belongingness comes
when the stories are closer to the hearts of the students.

How are stories
really used?

Students of second language classrooms encounter stories quite
often since they form essential part of the variety of General English textbooks used in India.
Crucial to our discussion is the fact that these stories are not meant to serve as an amusement but
as a vehicle to develop the communicative competence of the students. Proper use of stories,
therefore, holds the key to healthy teaching-learning situations and teachers’ expertise is
vital. We shall broadly classify teachers into four categories based on the way they use stories.
They are the silencers, the animators, the examiners and the co-creators. Explanation of these
categories is as follows:

The Silencers: These are teachers who assume
that giving summaries and simplifying the difficult aspects of the texts are what the stories are
meant for. As a result, students remain mute spectators to the teachers’ monologues rather
than (re)creating and sharing their thoughts.

The Animators: Some
teachers with animated expressions try to impress upon the listeners. They dramatise the story
single-handedly refusing to acknowledge the same talents hidden among the students. The root of the
problem lies in the perception that stories are meant for pleasure. In fact, animated expressions
alone will not be sufficient for teachers who are not only storytellers but also facilitators of
language acquisition.

The Examiners: The teachers who fall under this
category are those who deal with stories in such a way that they give due attention to the factual
details of stories, whereas, the language components and skills are largely neglected. They do so
because of the examination system which encourages rote-learning and tests mere memory skills of the
students. Thus, they think that catering to the examination needs of the students would guarantee
goodwill from the students, parents and importantly the authorities of the institution.

The Co-Creators: These teachers consider stories as a launching pad for language
teaching. They may involve in monologues yet have an underlying concern for language-intake; they
may dramatise only to see a language learning purpose in their enactment; they may focus on factual
details but insist those facts test the communicative competence of the students. Above all, they
encourage students to actively participate in the learning process by giving them more opportunities
through activities which help students explore the various creative possibilities of learning. These
teachers serve as co-creators by the side of the students and counsel them at times of extreme
difficulties with language, context and activity.

Creative ways
of using stories

Storytelling is an art which should aim at keeping the
listener active. Paran and Watts (2003) believe that students “learn best when they are
active” (p. 5). By merely reading from the text or narrating from rote memory or enacting
the story will not guarantee active student-participation. In order to get students involved as
active participants, they should become co-creators of the story with a definite language focus.
Garvie (1990) goes a step further and asks for learner autonomy. She is of the opinion that while
using stories, “Teacher educators must make sure that their students are put in the position
of having to work things out for themselves” (p. 132). Teachers should encourage discourse
where students and teachers jointly construct meaning through the target language. In a way this
enables teachers to become co-creators.

The following are ten useful activities which
can be used to encourage meaningful interaction among students. These activities can be used as
group/pair work or can be directed at the entire class depending on the number of students in a
class and the facilities available in the classroom.

Activity
1: Update/relocate the story This is a good vocabulary activity. Students often come across
stories which belong to different periods and unfamiliar settings. Teachers may select a story and
ask the students to team themselves in fours to update the story in all ways like the timeframe,
gadgets, vehicles etc and place them in a different location. For example, if the story took place
in New York in the nineteenth century, it could be relocated to a remote village in India. In this
way, they get to use different words for different periods, domains, and registers.

Activity 2: Convert the story into a short play/poem This is an interesting
activity through which the students get to know the nuances of different genres. A short story of
highly descriptive nature can be handed over to the students. Ask half the population to convert it
into a short play which is dialogue based and the other half to draft a poem out of the ideas
presented in the short story to imbibe brevity of expressions and practise figures of speech. In the
end, by asking the students to enact the plays and recite the poems, teachers can provide a platform
for the students to exhibit their creative talents.

Activity 3: Change
qualities of the lead-characters This is an activity to practise adjectives and adverbs. Choose a
story which has at least three important characters. Allow the students to have a silent reading of
the story (explanation may be needed for beginners) to focus on any two characters for the activity.
For the second reading, assign the students to underline words which add more meaning to the
protagonist’s appearance and action. Ask the students to replace the underlined words with
their corresponding antonyms. By inviting the students to apply appropriate opposites to the
underlined words, the teachers shall help them notice how changes occur while describing the same
persons using completely different words.

Activity
4: What next? In this activity, introduce students to the first conflict in a story which
is supposed to be known only to the teacher. If the students know the story, the activity may
attract less attention. After setting the conflict, encourage the students to guess the causal
factor of the conflict. Students may go wrong with their responses but encourage them to attempt
more guesses. While doing so, appreciate the creative responses yet not deviate from the original
plot of the story. From one causal factor to another, the students can be led to the ending of the
story. For this activity, it would be better to choose a story which has a predicable movement from
one sub-plot to another to facilitate instant responses from students to save time. It is advisable
to reach the end of the story in one session. Activity 5: Mime-to-guess First,
instruct a student to decide on ten important events of a short story he/she is familiar with.
Meanwhile, divide the class into teams A and B and inform that a student will come in the front of
the class and mime ten events to them. While miming, these students have to guess the action and
substitute it with words. This miming and guessing will continue till the end of the story. To
clarify, each team will be given 5 chances each immediately after each mime. They have to clarify
doubts using only yes/no questions. Instruct the miming student only to answer either
‘yes’ or ‘no’. On completion, the teams put together their guesses and write
a story using the sentences. This activity can be used to practise close-ended questions and modal
auxiliaries.

Activity 6: Information-gap Through this
activity open-ended questions can be practised. Make two copies of a story and delete certain
factual, say 10 facts each, from the two copies. The details deleted from one copy should differ
from that of the other copy. The task at hand for the students is to fill in the missing details by
asking questions to the other team which has the information. Teachers should allow exchange of
information only when the teams come up with appropriate questions. The team to first fill in the
missing information emerges winner.

Activity
7: Perform a total-physical response This listening activity is favourable for teaching
prepositions of place and movement. Ask a student to read a story consisting spatial descriptions,
for which, another student responds moving around the class following the details in the story. In
order to involve the other students, ask them to keep ready a blank paper so that they can draw the
movement mentioned in the story. At close, the drawings of the students can be compared to check
appropriacy.

Activity 8: If I were Personalising language learning is
an important characteristic of the communicative approach. Stories lend itself naturally to this
quality. Students can be asked this question: “If Mr. X were you, how would you respond to
this situation” or “What is your solution to the problem?” These are personalised
questions for which only the students have the answers. So this may give students some confidence to
use English who otherwise may feel diffident for want of correct answers.

Activity 9: Gossip Narrate a story which has two contrasting
characters. A detailed narration is a requisite. Invite a team to come forward to gossip positively
about one of the two characters in the story for about 5 minutes. Follow it up with another team
gossiping negatively about the same character. This can be extended to the other character(s) of the
story as well. Teachers may later urge the students not to involve in negative gossiping since it is
injurious to healthy relationships.

Activity 10: Develop a story This
is similar to that of the traditional hints development exercise. The fundamental difference is that
instead of giving hints to the students, give about 10-15 words/phrases extracted from a
story. Direct the students to weave a story around these words without dropping a word given in the
list. They may show enthusiasm if the words/phrases are crime-related such as ‘knife’,
‘blood on table’, ‘sniffer dogs’ etc. Give about 20 minutes for completion
and at close each student/team may come out with unique stories. Have some of these stories narrated
in the class during which some students can supplement the narration with background music through
voicing. Finally, the teacher can end the session by sharing the original story from which the
words/phrases are extracted.

Conclusion

Despite attempts to revive textbooks with day-to-day materials like newspapers, maps, timetables,
tickets etc, we see stories occupying almost the lion’s share of space of General English
textbooks in India. Nevertheless, instead
of creative use, stories are dulled by monotonous practices influenced by traditional theories of
language learning. Consequently, monotony hinders language learning and paints the use of stories in
a negative tone. Learning activities like the ones mentioned above may bring a paradigm shift
vis-a-vis the way second language is learned in a formal setting. Linked to this shift is the fact
that these activities demand nothing more than the facilities already available in the classrooms.
Neither do they call for extra equipments nor do they require drastic changes in seating
arrangements in order to involve students in the interactive teaching-learning process. To conclude,
it would be apt to cite a poem by Drew Hayden Taylor, who has written “Stories are
memories/That must be shared with the Universe/Because if they are not/The Universe becomes a much
smaller place”.

References

Basturkmen, H. (1990).
Literature and the intermediate language learner: A sample lesson with Hemingway’s “Cat
in the Rain”. English Teaching Forum, 28(3), 18-21.

Garvie, E. (1990). Story as a
vehicle: Teaching English to young children. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.